Sometimes, in order to help others, one must take hold the reigns of their desires to support the needs of others.
What this means is that every so often we must put on hold some aspects of our lives to think about others in our community in order to help them. That is what the Muslim Food Bank was created for.
Started up by dedicated and committed professionals from all fields, the Muslim Food Bank’s goal is simple. To help feed the hundreds of less fortunate families, initially concentrating on Muslims in the Lower Mainland. Alhamdulillah, with Allah`s (swt) help the Muslim Food Bank has teamed up with many organizations putting aside the customary beurocratic debates that sometimes surround these joint ventures in our community.
Although success is building, a notable challenge is that many believe that there is a greater need from people in homelands in Africa, Middle East, South Asia etc. Though we must never forget or stop supporting our brothers and sisters around the world, we cannot overlook that our duty is to also serve our local community. 
Hundreds of Muslims are struggling, many given no option but to use the local food banks for support. Although they do an immensely good deed by dedicating their time and effort it is also our duty towards humanity that we must ensure that they get support from their communities too. Due to obvious factors that fall on them, local brothers and sisters do not have the option of certain commodities such as Halal meat.
It is for those reasons that such organizations in which their sole purpose is to help sustain the community must be supported fully, with our time, money, and whatever other resources that may be needed. We have to open our eyes to the not so obvious and accept the harsh reality that our neighbours, even in such a blessed country like Canada face huge obstacles like hunger and poverty that many people thought they left behind when they came here to this country.
It is our duty to our religion, our community and our country to support organizations like the Muslim Food Bank. Although it is a very long journey to end starvation even in our local communities, the first stages are always the hardest. Therefore, starting in this holy month of Ramadan we must look towards god and the examples of our prophet and see what needs to be done. A single step, no matter how small towards good will never be brushed over.
With that in mind, may Allah (swt) help us all make favourable decisions and keep on the path of our Prophet.
The Muslim Food Bank is looking for families in need, donors and volunteers. To help out or receive aid, please contact us at 778-297-4252 or email us info@muslimfoodbank.com.

By Muzaffar Iqbal
President, Center for Islam and Science, Canada, www.cis-ca.org

There has been a recent surge of interest in the Noble Qur’an: Several new translations have appeared during the last decade, many study aids and dictionaries have been published, and there is a renewed interest in translating classical works on the Qur’an into English. In addition, there have come into existence hundreds of new websites dedicated to the study, memorization, and spread of the message of the Qur’an. Thousands of young men and women are devoting their lives to memorize the Qur’an. A new and widespread process of intensive learning is taking thousands of young men and women, mostly belonging to the second and third generation of Muslims living in the West, to traditional lands of Islam to learn Qur’anic sciences.
Alongside this positive activity, there is also a renewed vigor in certain circles to discredit and distort the message of the Qur’an. This trend is manifesting in the appearance of works which cast doubts on the Divine origin of the Qur’an, and those which refurbish Orientalism in an academic garb and present putative scholarly works on various aspects of the Qur’an; in addition, hundreds of new websites against the Qur’an have sprung up. There is even a longer-term, well-funded effort to produce a new Qur’an. In its more extreme form, this activity has led to incidents of burning the Qur’an and other acts which show extreme disrespect to the Divine Book.
None of this should come as a surprise to the believers; the Qur’an is, after all, a Book whose wonders will never exhaust until the end of time, as Ali¯ ibn Abi¯ Talib—may Allah be pleased with him—said: “It is the never-ending, ever-lasting miracle that is continuous through the course of time until Allah inherits the earth and what is upon it.”
At this time of renewed interest in Qur’an, the pertinent questions for believers are:
*What should we Muslims do at this crucial time?
*What is it that the Qur’an demands from us?
*How can we be of service to the Book at this time?
 As Muslims our belief in the Divine origin of the Qur’an is unshakable; every fourth person now living on Earth believes that the Qur’an is the actual Word of Allah, Most High; it is the miracle given to the Prophet, upon him peace, as he himself told us: “There was no Prophet among the Prophets but was given miracles because of which people believed in him, but what I was given [as a miracle is this] Revelation, which Allah Most High revealed to me. So I hope that my followers will be more than those of any other Prophet on the Day of Resurrection.” (Sahih al-Bukhari, fada’il al-Qur’an, kayfa nuzul al-wahy.)
During the last fourteen centuries, countless human beings have discovered in a very profound manner that the Qur’an is, in fact, the Rope of Allah, the Straight Path and the Light which guides to the truth and the right way. In each generation there have been men and women who have memorized it, pondered and reflected over it, learned from the scholars of previous generations and left behind gems and jewels for later generations—knowledge which acts as continuous charity (sadaqa jariyah) for them and from which others profit. The question before us today is: what are we going to leave behind for the subsequent generations?
Given the severity of our times, multi-facet attacks on the Book, and the Thursday, August 26, 2010fact that today only about 20% of believers have direct access to the Book which guides—as the rest cannot even open it and start reading due to linguistic limitations—there are certain obligations that the entire Muslim Umma carries in relation to the Qur’an. This collective obligation (fard kifaya) demands that certain members of the Muslim community undertake projects to preserve, enhance, and spread the message of the Qur’an in accordance with the needs of our times.
The most important of these obligations is to open paths to the message of the Qur’an for both believers and non-believers. The Qur’an and the vast repository of Qur’anic sciences are in classical Arabic which is not accessible to over 80% Muslims and to an overwhelming majority of non-Muslims. Since the Qur’an is the actual Speech of Allah (Kalam Allah), it is an untranslatable text. Thus no translation can fully convey the message of the Qur’an. While reading a translation can provide a general idea of the meanings of the verses of the Qur’an, such reading is fraught with intellectual and spiritual problems because the reader is, in fact, reading a text produced by another human mind conditioned by the time, place, and spiritual and intellectual station of the translator. Even the most conscious reader cannot avoid the numerous pitfalls of the translated text.
One possible way to open paths of access to the message of the Qur’an is through the publication of an encyclopedia which presents scholarly articles on all concepts, places, events, things, and persons mentioned in the Qur’an. Such a work will help the general reader as well as academic scholars focusing on various aspects of the Qur’an. It will provide to the contemporary readers a much-needed and, to date unavailable, reference work that taps into the vast corpus of Muslim scholarship produced over the last millennium and a half. Such a reference work will also bring into mainstream academic discourse bibliographic references to hundreds of classical works that are otherwise scattered over a vast body of inaccessible texts and serve as a useful starting point for new research on the Qur’an both in the Muslim world as well as in the West.
These considerations have led the Center for Islam and Science, Canada (www.cis-ca.org  to launch an international project to produce the first English language encyclopedia of the Qur’an written by Muslims: The Integrated Encyclopedia of the Qur’an (IEQ) )—a unique reference work in seven projected volumes that will encapsulate fourteen hundred years of Islamic scholarship on the Qur’an and present this wealth of knowledge to the contemporary world in a vigorous scholarly manner. The editors have drawn up about 600 entries and several hundred cross-references covering all concepts, places, persons, and things mentioned in the Qur’an. Each entry is treated with an article ranging from 500 to 10,000 words. Each of its seven projected volumes will be approximately 550-600 pages.
Once completed, IEQ will bring to English readership a breadth of knowledge on the Qur’an seldom found in any single work in a Western language. Potential readership of IEQ includes academic specialists in the field of Qur’anic studies, faculty in religious studies departments, researchers engaged in any aspect of Islam, graduate students, Muslims interested in an in-depth study of the Qur’an, and non-Muslims seeking veritable understanding of the Qur’anic message through a clear and scholarly exposition of its themes, concepts, and worldview. IEQ will provide a much-needed alternative to works on the Qur’an by Orientalists and the majority of contemporary academic scholars.
IEQ is an international project—the first of its kind undertaken by Muslims in a Western language. You can be part of this international effort. There are many ways to do so. These range from financial donations to scholarly contributions. Please visit the project website (www.iequran.com ) for more details.